Our lesson last night was a great reminder that Jesus has made the ultimate and final sacrifice for us by giving His life for ours. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus paid the price for the sin of the entire world! And if we believe in Him and repent of our sins, we receive eternal life. That is awesome! It’s great news!!

We have gone from being guilty to being innocent all because of Jesus’ sacrifice.

If we have placed our trust and belief in Jesus, He asks that we respond by following His example. He asks that we would be willing to give Him our lives to be used for His plans. He asks that we would be willing to sacrifice our time, our efforts, our plans, our future, all for Him. Not because He wants to make us suffer but because He wants us to know Him completely. The more we follow Him, the more we discover about Him and the closer we get to Him. And of course, the closer we get to Him, the more that will change our lives. And the more that Jesus changes our lives, the more we will want to tell others about Him.

I hope and pray that you will take time today and every day to tell Jesus that you’re giving Him control. I hope that you will tell Him that you are willing to follow Him wherever He will lead you. And I hope that you will know Him better and better each day of your life!

I hope you all had a nice Easter weekend 🙂 It’s so awesome to know that Jesus is alive!

It’s that truth that changed the world. And hopefully, that same truth has changed your life!

With that in mind, I want to remind you of our lesson from last Wednesday evening and I want to ask you to take some time to message me today. Please let me know what action you believe that God wants you to take this week in order to live out your faith in Jesus. Some of you have done this already 🙂 Thanks! And I pray that God will help you carry out your plan.

I know that I’ve been working on living out my faith by trusting that Jesus is going to continue to take care of my family, even when things aren’t easy. And I’ve been actively seeking to share my faith with others by sharing what Christ is doing in my life.

I look forward to hearing from you all, and as always, I am looking forward to Wednesday!! 🙂

I had a great time learning with you all last night 🙂 It was good to work together to accomplish the several different “tasks” we had to perform last night. Each of you brought an important component to our group.

As we talked last night, each of us are a part of The Body of Christ. Not His physical body, but the body that Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians (the church). Each of you, when you become a Christ follower, become a valuable part of the Body and you have an essential role that needs to carried out.

I don’t know about you, but it’s pretty cool (and even a little weird) to think that God (Who can do all sorts of mind blowing miracles and can speak an entire universe into existence) needs me to do a job for Him. I mean, it’s really amazing! I know I’m only human. I know that I can’t ever be a perfect person, that I won’t always know what to say, and that I’m going to drop the ball sometimes. I know that sometimes I’m going to chicken out when God asks me to do something big, or that I will try and then fail sometimes. And I can imagine that you know the same things about yourselves. Yet, God needs and wants us to be a part of the Body so that we can carry out the mission that He has given us.

Wow! What an amazing God!

But that’s what He’s like.

He looks at us and sees the amazing qualities that He’s put into our lives rather than seeing all the things we do wrong. And when we are Christ followers, He sees us like He sees Jesus. He doesn’t see us as the limited, timid people that we are without Christ.

I am sure I’ve mentioned this before (and probably will again), but I want you to remember that you don’t have to wait until you’re an adult in order to be a vital part of the Body of Christ. It’s not just a “grown-up’s” job. Each of you has talents and gifts that God has given to you and they’re in your life right now. And, those gifts and talents are an important part of the Body. And what’s more, I see you guys living out your lives as a part of the Body each week 🙂

I see you all being parts of the Body in all kinds of ways. I see some of you leading other teens by teaching or instruction. I see some of you encouraging other teens through life’s difficulties. I see some of you teaching other teens about the Word of God and about Christ. And I see so many of you sharing your faith. I see each of you using talents that God has given to you (whether they are musical, creative, athletic or even social skills) to do tasks within the church and in the community. And, I see you caring for each other, being willing to support and be there for each other.

It’s really awesome to watch!!

As you go through this week, I hope that you will stop to think about the roles that you play as a part of the Body. Take some time to give thanks to God for giving you a part to play in His mission. And ask Him to help you to do your best at filling your role.

Thanks to Michael, last night we had a great visual example of what it means to be totally saturated by God’s grace 🙂

I wanted to share another visual example today as told by Jesus. He was great at using word pictures to help people understand the Gospel and this story is another example of His excellent teaching abilities. Jesus told a story in Matthew 18:21-35 about an un-merciful servant. In the story, a person owed a HUGE amount of money to the king when the king decides to settle all of his accounts. The person begs for mercy because he cannot pay the debt and he is about to have to sell everything he owns. The king sees the person’s distress and offers incredible grace. He completely cancels the debt that was owed to him! Completely! The person owed the king the modern equivalent of millions of dollars, yet the king completely forgave the debt!

Then, the person whose debt has been forgiven leaves the king’s courts and takes a walk in town. As he is out, he sees a person who owes him some money (about 10 dollars.) The person who has just been forgiven a huge debt grabs the man who owes him around the next and publicly threatens him with jail if he doesn’t pay the debt, immediately! One of the king’s servants sees this exchange and runs to tell the king…..

I don’t want to spoil it for you. You should read it yourself 🙂 But the point is, the person who had received grace in bucketfuls wasn’t even willing to give his debtor a little spritzing of grace. Jesus was using this story as an example of how we should not behave. It seems extreme to us perhaps, but then again, we can’t see the amounts of debts (sins) that God has forgiven us. It’s easy for us to overlook those things or to lose sight of just how gracious God really is! Especially when we’re dealing with someone who has offended us in some way.

I recently saw a present day example of this story when I was watching an episode of The Office. In the episode (“Moving On”), Andy gets called into a meeting with the CEO of the company after the CEO finds out that Andy had been gone on a sailing vacation for the past three months. The CEO was very angry because, not only did Andy not have permission to take the 3 month vacation, but he also lied to the CEO about ever having been gone in the first place. As the CEO confronts Andy about these serious infractions, Andy gets very upset and fears losing his job. Andy begins to beg the CEO not to fire him. The CEO chooses to show Andy mercy and forgives the offense, allowing Andy to keep his job and his position as manager of the branch.

Later in the episode, Andy finds out that one of his employees (Pete) is dating Erin (Andy’s ex-girlfriend for whom he still has feelings.) Andy is really angry and jealous about Pete and Erin’s relationship and so, to take revenge, Andy calls Pete into his office and tells him that he is fired. Pete has committed no infractions at all with regards to his job, the only thing he has done “wrong” is to choose to date Erin. Yet, Andy decides to fire Pete unjustifiably, and all of this happens within a few hours of when the CEO offered Andy grace for his 3 month vacation and lies.

If you have the time, and you enjoy The Office, you can check out the episode. Just like Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant, it’s a great example of how we should not behave.

Of course, as we talked last night, God asks us to show others the same kind of grace that He shows us. And as I encouraged you all (and of course hold myself to the same challenge), I hope and pray that you will find ways to show people grace throughout the next week. Pray about it, especially when it comes to showing grace to those who we don’t necessarily want to be gracious with, and let God help you. I look forward to hearing what happens 🙂

The Holy Spirit inspired Jeremiah to write these words, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” – Jeremiah 17:7-8

These verses describe what our spiritual life is like when we stay connected or, as Jesus said in John 15 “remain” in Him. We talked Wednesday about staying connected to the Vine. And yesterday I challenged you to think about what you’re doing to make sure you are staying connected to Jesus. I hope you gave that some thought. (If not, you can do that today 🙂 ) But, today, as we continue this conversation, I want you to do some creative thinking about Jesus’ word picture (the vine and branches) and Jeremiah’s word picture.

If you could rewrite these verses for our modern context, what would you say to help people understand what our spiritual lives are like when we do or do not stay connected to Christ? Don’t change the meaning, but feel free to change the description or example if you think it would help.

Our study from John 15 told us how important it is to remain in Jesus and to let Him remain in us. What does that mean??

As we talked last night, we agreed that Jesus was teaching us that we need to stay connected to Him. He was teaching us that we can’t live life as a Christian without Him. In fact, His words in John 15 tell us that if we try to do it on our own, we become like the branch of a plant that gets cut off from the vine. Our spiritual lives will eventually start to wither and die. Just like a plant, we need to stay connected to the source of life in order to have life ourselves.

So, I wanted to just ask a question….what kind of things are you doing to stay connected to Jesus? How are you making sure that you are getting the health and nutrition you need from “the Vine”?

You don’t have to answer me here (unless you want to). Instead, I really ask that you would take some time to think about this question and pray about it. Give thanks to God for those areas in your life where you know that you’ve got a great connection! And ask God if there are some things in your life that work like breaks in the connection. Spend some time listening for His answer. Maybe talk with a Christian friend about what they see in your life, and you can do the same with them. And encourage each other to keep growing in your relationship with Jesus.

Check back here tomorrow….where we can continue the conversation 🙂

P.S. You can always message me. I am happy to talk with you about this or anything else. And remember, I don’t ask you to do things that I’m not willing to do myself. I will be spending this afternoon reflecting on these questions and praying for God’s insight into my life as well. I promise 🙂

As promised, I am posting some questions below that will help us to continue our conversation from last night. I really hope that you will take the time to think about and then talk about these questions. Chat or text with a friend, with me or even with your parents about these questions. And of course, I encourage you to spend some time in prayer about them, asking God to help you break free. (Remember, it’s impossible without His help!)

* When have you seen harm come to people who fell into habitual sin or drug abuse? What was the outcome?

* How satisfied are you with your hunger and thirst for righteousness? Why? What are you going to do to grow that hunger and thirst?

* What is one habit or behavior in your life that you most need to get rid of? Why? How do you intend to get rid of it?

* What one thing will you immediately commit to do to break free from that sin or habit–and how can I (or the group) help you?

Remember. You are not in this alone. We all struggle with bad or sinful habits. But, we don’t have to be stuck. God can help. He wants to help. He doesn’t want you to be stuck because He loves you with a crazy love. He wants to have a relationship with you, and not just any relationship. He wants to be close to you, to be with you through everything life sends your way. He wants to bless you and put joy and love in your life. He wants you to have an amazing life and He wants you to become more and more like Jesus everyday.

But as we discussed last night, our sin separates us from God because He is righteous. So, in order to have this amazing relationship, we have to ask God to help us get out of the sinful habits that we live in.

Tonight at FBC Youth, we are going to be talking about how Jesus can help us break from bad and sinful habits.

In order to get ready for this lesson, I want you to take a couple of minutes today to think about what bad and sinful habits you might be struggling with. I know that I have a bad habit of procrastinating. I’m doing better at this than I used to, but I still struggle. I also have a hard time controlling my tongue and my temper at times. Instead of taking time to listen and breathe, I sometimes get frustrated and say something I shouldn’t say. I’m sure as I think throughout the day, other things will come to my mind.

I challenge you to spend some time in prayer and just ask God to show you the habits or sinful behaviors that are standing in between you and Him. And come to FBC Youth encouraged to know that God can help you break free!